Counsel, public debate, and queenship : John Stubbs’s 'The discoverie of a gaping gulf', 1579

Mears, N.

doi:10.1017/s0018246x01001947

Counsel, public debate, and queenship : John Stubbs’s 'The discoverie of a gaping gulf', 1579

Mears, N.

Authors

Professor Natalie Mears natalie.mears@durham.ac.uk
Professor

Abstract

John Stubbs's controversial pamphlet against Elizabeth's proposed marriage with Francis, duke of Anjou, The discoverie of a gaping gulf (1579), has conventionally been seen - with Edmund Spenser's The shepheardes calendar and Philip Sidney's letter to Elizabeth - as part of a propaganda campaign organized by Leicester and Walsingham to force Elizabeth to reject the marriage. Yet the evidence linking Stubbs with Leicester and Walsingham is thin. This article re-examines that evidence in the light of recent research on court factionalism, men-of-business, and concepts of counsel. It argues that A gaping gulf was an independent initiative taken by Stubbs which expressed very different attitudes to 'counsel' from Sidney's letter. It suggests that participants in public debate need to be explored on their own terms, rather than as necessarily catspaws of councillors; that there was an emergent Elizabethan public sphere independent of the court which, in holding different attitudes to counsel than councillors, could bring them into conflict with Elizabeth.

Citation

Mears, N. (2001). Counsel, public debate, and queenship : John Stubbs’s 'The discoverie of a gaping gulf', 1579. Historical Journal, 44(3), 629-650. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0018246x01001947

Journal Article Type	Article
Publication Date	2001-09
Deposit Date	May 23, 2008
Publicly Available Date	May 23, 2008
Journal	Historical Journal
Print ISSN	0018-246X
Electronic ISSN	1469-5103
Publisher	Cambridge University Press
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	44
Issue	3
Pages	629-650
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1017/s0018246x01001947
Keywords	Elizabeth I, Francis Duke of Anjou, Marriage.
Publisher URL	10.1017/S0018246X01001947